Hello. By which I mean, hello again. A few years ago, I joined this forum and posted here about having acquired, on a whim, an early-production 12-gauge Browning B-SS (28", single non-selective, Modified/Full, pistol-grip, made in Japan) and subsequently trying it out for American Trap and, even, ahem, just for giggles, Olympic Skeet. Your comments, suggestions, and insights were welcome, wonderful, and useful. They helped me have loads of fun shooting the thing, and I haven't forgotten them. But then life and other priorities and COVID got in the way, sequentially, and I guess I haven't fired a shot out of anything proofmarked in about five years.

But now, the veil has lifted, somewhat. I got a small bonus from work in June, and decided to rashly spend it on something that would give me an excuse to get out in the autumn forests and/or society again. I determined that the antithesis to my big, heavy 12-bore would be the answer. I started looking at smallerbore shotguns. And then I spotted a well-respected Canadian dealer's consignment sale for a 28-gauge CZ Ringneck. I scratched my head. It's pretty. It's small. It's not too expensive. It might be just the thing as a grouse defence shotgun. But what the Hell is it?

So, as some of us who know no actual people are wont to do, I consulted the Internet. Therein, I found confusion and contradiction. "It's made in Turkey! Turkish shotguns are fecal!" "Never had a problem with mine." "The firing pins break!" "The forends drop off if you fire both barrels in close sequence!" "A Turkish double ate my baby while she was swimming off Cape Cod!" "I've shot a thousand rounds of trap with mine, and though I've failed to ever break fifteen, the firing pins have never failed." "The Turks have never forgotten Gallipoli! It's a trap!!" "Need I remind you that the Czechs developed the BREN, and then outsourced production to England. Trust their practical judgement."

That last statement, by a paid spokesman, made me trust them. I examined the advert with renewed intent.

Consignment - CZ 28 Ga/2.75"/26" - Ringneck - 201A Mini -Turkish walnut - Prince of Wales stock - Unfired - in Beretta fitted luggage case - $950

That's 950 Canadian dollars. I scratched my head. And sent two questions to the dealer. 1. How many chokes does it come with? 2. Is that a lockable fitted Beretta hard case?

The answers came back as, 1. Three chokes, Improved, Modified, and Full, and 2. Yes.

I knew, because reading, that these shotguns shipped with five interchangeable chokes, and figured that the dealer, because volume, had neglected to count the two that might have been screwed into the barrels by the factory. I was also in dire need of another decent double-gun case, because recent-purchase Winchester Model 1892 Takedown reasons, which we shall not otherwise discuss here. And as for "unfired", well, probably not, but these things can happen. And they're reputable. So I figured, ahh, at that price, roll the sodding dice. And I bought it.

And it has arrived. And this is what I wrote a distant, cross-country shotgun friend about my unboxing:

That "unfired" CZurkish 28-gauge has arrived. No trace of casehead marks on the breechface, so maybe they weren't lying. Arrived with all five chokes instead of the three they mentioned in the ad (they failed to count the two screwed into the bores, which I'd gambled on), choke wrench, two plain snap caps, two weird snap caps with fuzzy white chamber swabs on them (hadn't known those existed- what are they?), velvet socks for barrel and buttstock, an unopened tube of Brian Enos pistol lubricant (which is handy, because I can't find my bottle of Militec), the original cardboard box & owner's manual, *and* an unused lockable Beretta double gun hard case, leather-covered, that sold for $459 US in 2015 (the previous owner's order printout was in it. The little red plastic anti-rotation pins are still in its combination locks. EVERYTHING IS NEW OLD STOCK.

It has selectable single trigger, extractors only. (So far, my only regret is that it lacks ejectors.) Much daintier and daintier-handling than the B-SS. Trigger pulls are a bit stiffer. It's a very well-drawn little shotgun, by my eye. And I can see myself walking the trails at the lake with it; it's not too heavy. Oh, and the barrels *are* 26 inches, breeches to muzzles.

$950 CDN. Huh. I think I got royally screwed.

Local trap & skeet club is hosting a Browning open house on Saturday. It's gonna be sunny. Guess where I'm going. I'll be bringing both.

Nice buy! The leather case may be worth what you paid for the whole CZBANG!

Sounds like you did well. As owner of a couple Turkiish made S X Ss, I expected your trigger pulls to be harder/heavier the BSS, which I also own one of.

What you paid would be $731.54 USD, according to the latest numbers. I'd have done the same thing as you, exactly.

If you find the trigger pulls too heavy for good shooting it's no big expense to have them reworked to lighter weight pulls.

I have owned 4 CZ SxS guns, I had problems with all 4.
CZ SxS's have an inherent problem with the triggers and firing pins, I had light strikes on all 4 guns.
Good news is CZ has the best warranty reputation in the business, and they will take care of you.
If they couldn't fix my gun, they replaced it with a new one.

If I wanted a SxS in that price range, I wouldn't hesitate to buy another, but I would know going in I might have problems.
FWIW not all turkish guns I have owned have had problems, I own two Dickinson Plantation Sportings and have had zero problems with either.
I also recently bought a Fausti DEA (Italian) and it quit shooting after the 5th shot, it has been sent back for warranty to Fausti USA.

I have had problems with Beretta's, Brownings, Winchester's, and a few more.
Any gun can can have problems, it's how the company handles the problem that counts.

I have CZ's and a Turkish SKB w/o serious problems! One was a custom shop 12 gauge hammer gun with custom wood. My only issue was with a 16 gauge with fixed chokes. I sent it to Briley for screw in and had to have a barrel trued to match the other so that chokes selected would match my desired results. Hard to beat the prices! These recent imports seem to have better QC than Turkish imports of 20 years ago.

I've had the entry level CZ 12 gauge Bobwhite G2 for a couple of years now and I'm pleased with the gun. Yes the gun is tight out of the box and the trigger pull is heavier than on the guns that most of you shoot. Compared to the Stoegers and TTNs which I see a lot of at cowboy shoots, the build quality and appearance of the CZ is much better. I know other shooters who have bought the CZ O/U and semi-auto shotguns and they are also happy.

My only criticism of my gun is that it doesn't like shotgun shells with soft primers, like Federal or Estate, which make the gun hard to open.

You are going to enjoy 28 gauge very much, but the first thing is to know it well. Choose the gun you prefer now to know this lovely gauge and later I'm sure you choose better shotguns.

Good luck!

be careful swimming off cape cod...

That's a hell of a buy. As a Canadian I wish I'd noticed the ad. LOL

So I went to that Browning open house shindig. Shot two rounds of trap like a sandbag with my B-SS, feeling very rusty, then tried (I think) 5-Stand with a demo 12-gauge Citori Hunter. My first time shooting an over-and-under. And my first time shooting 5-Stand. Gawd, it was chaos! Clay pigeons coming outta the goddamned walls! Leaping out of the ground! Hissing in over my shoulder! Hit mostly nothing. Shotgun felt like a bus in my hands. And then, figuring I was at least warmed-up, and that it couldn't get any worse, I decided to shoot two more rounds of trap with my new CZurkish 28-gauge shotgun. 7/8 oz #8s, with the Modified choke screwed into in the starboard barrel, at the club coach's recommendation.

Holy damn.

Even though I'd been away from the game for five years, I well and truly crushed a bunch of 'em with that little thing. Got more than half, both tries. Most of the ones I hit well were going-away, and I smacked them, hard, with my brain turned off, just as they left the bunker. They just burst. "PULL!"SMASH.

That thing points like my finger. My Browning points like a train, in comparison.

Bonus: That Plain Jane little side-by-each stops people in their tracks when I walk past them. Several conversations were started, and acquaintances were made. I don't regret a dollar I spent on that spindly little shotgun.

It was a nice day out.

Now I want to try it at Olympic Skeet. How should I choke it?

Interesting post. Thanks for sharing. Gil

Excellent line and comments. Like it or not, the current center for SxS manufacture is in the area around Huglu in Turkey. They are the successors to Saint-Etienne, Birmingham, Liège, et. al. They now have the workforce, the knowledge, and the market. The prices cannot be matched anywhere in the West. Many contributors to this site have noted the steady improvement in the quality of the Turkish product...and the need to do work on the triggers. Your enjoyment of the 28 bore is infectious and indeed pretty ubiquitous these days.

I screwed the Modified choke Into the starboard tube because the right-side trigger was better, fired dry. I didn't find the trigger pull to be a problem in close contact against orange things. Next time out for trap, I'll switch trap choke and barrel-preference both to portside, and will report if it makes a difference,

Regardless: This little shotgun swings like your Grade 2 teacher's turned maple pointer. If we 're of an age...

It is a fun pair of pipes to own.

I've tried Olympic skeet with a 12 gauge, you should be able to choke it the same way as regular skeet unless a 28 gauge needs to be choked tighter. With what comes with the CZ, cylinder and improved cylinder

Thank you! It did come with those.

I tried it at Ordinary Skeet yesterday, with the Cylinder and Improved Cylinder chokes fitted, in that firing order. Even being coached, I didn't hit many because of my sloppy execution, but the ones I did hit were most gratifyingly pulverized, even when I offered the target far too much lead.

"Lead it by about a foot and a half."

"Gotcha. PULL!"

-BLAM-

"Oh, nice shot!"

"Thank you! Except I failed to do what you told me to! That looked more like three feet and a half!"

Left trigger that I'd reported being much heavier during dry-firing when I received it was not even noticeable when confronting clay targets. I put the Cylinder choke tube in the port barrel and switched it to fire left first for yesterday's shoot, and remember no appreciable difference.

The thing that strikes me the most about this little shotgun is how light it is, relative to my B-SS. I held it in my hand (broken open) most of the afternoon, on a hot, wearyingly sunny day, and never had the inclination to drape it over my shoulder or rest it on my toe.

Great report
Thanks
Mike

the Turks have gotten better with triggers. But I'd still never recommend that anyone buy a Turkish double without testing the triggers. A friend bought a new CZ 28, godawful triggers. Checked it with my gauge. It only goes to 8#, and the gun was off the scale. He tried checking it using a fish scale, came out over 9. CZ will lighten the pull to the weight of the gun. That got him down to 6#, which some will find heavy if the gun in question weighs 6#.

I believe the SKB guys have ceased importing Turkish guns. I dropped snap caps into several of theirs (all of which were single trigger guns). I didn't find any with really heavy triggers.

the Turks have gotten better with triggers. But I'd still never recommend that anyone buy a Turkish double without testing the triggers. A friend bought a new CZ 28, godawful triggers. Checked it with my gauge. It only goes to 8#, and the gun was off the scale. He tried checking it using a fish scale, came out over 9. CZ will lighten the pull to the weight of the gun. That got him down to 6#, which some will find heavy if the gun in question weighs 6#.

I believe the SKB guys have ceased importing Turkish guns. I dropped snap caps into several of theirs (all of which were single trigger guns). I didn't find any with really heavy triggers.

Almost 20 years ago I met a retired Remington executive who had launched a partnership in Turkey to build 28ga and 20ga SXS and O/U guns. Reportedly at least some of them were fabricated using old equipment purchased from Beretta in Italy and shipped east to the vicinity of Huglu. I purchased a lovely little 28ga SXS boxlock from him with crazy gorgeous turkish walnut that was marked "Hatfield. Made in Turkey" which was my only disappointment with it... I hate it when older makers have their name recycled. I killed a bunch of dove and chukar with it, then sold it because for some reason I thought the 26 inch barrels needed to be longer. If I understand the story, he later started building (or licensed) the 20ga sidelock "Valier" badged by Kimber for a run that only lasted a few years. I never warmed up to that gun due to its rather stout weight, but they are still occasionally encountered. I haven't seen any of his "Hatfield" guns in years. However I now own a CZ Bobwhite 28ga, again with 26 inch pipes, with identical lines with I use for mountain grouse as much as anything. The triggers are fine, but it does tend to drag the firing pins, opening stiffly on most shells including Win AA. Does anybody recommend polishing firing pins (or?) to reduce this?